Survey of Beliefs and Attitudes About Education
©1995 Edward G. Rozycki, Ed.D.

The questions below have intrigued thinkers throughout history. With each question is a list of answers that have been seriously offered at one time or another.

Which responses (there may be more than one) do you believe best answer the question? Please indicate your choices by checking or circling them. Or, if you feel that none of those given is quite what you believe, you may enter your own answer in the space provided.

(Link to Synopsis Form)

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edited 4/14/12



Values 1. What knowledge and skills are worth learning? ___a. things useful in life

___b. laws of nature

___c. art

___d. religion

___e. survival skills

___f. discipline

___g. learning how to learn.

___h.______________________

2. What are the ultimate goals of education?

___a. salvation

___b. a better society

___c. maximizing personal power

___d. self-expression

___e. achieving one's potential

___f. enlightenment

__g.__________________

3. What takes priority? a. first ________________

b. second _______________

c. third ________________

d. fourth _______________

e. fifth _________________


Knowledge 4. What is knowledge? How does it differ from belief and feeling? ___a. beliefs that correspond with reality

___b. control of reinforcers

___c. justified, true belief

___d. apprehension of the real

___e. ability to solve problems

___f. group consensus

___g. a tradition of faith

___h.________________________

5. What is a mistake? ___a. a misperception

___b. misinformed action

___c. non-reinforced behavior

___d. an alternative mental processing

___e. a deviation from a norm

___f. an act of defiance

___g._____________________

6. How can we tell whether our goals have been achieved?

___a. by testing

___b. by intuition

___c. by the effort we have put into attaining them.

___d. by our lack of desire to continue effort.

___e. ._____________________


Human Nature 7. How do human beings differ significant from other living things?

___a. they possess a soul

___b. they can conceptualize

___c. they use language.

___d. they can transcend causality

___e. they are active, physical organisms

___f. .they have free will

___g. .___________________

8. To what extent does heredity, not learning influence human behavior? ___a. artistic ability is "in the blood."

___b. all behavior is learned

___c. altruism is hereditary.

___d. neither heredity nor learning causes human acts

___e. intelligence cannot be enhanced by training.

___f.._____________________



Learning

9. What is learning?

___a. a change in behavior

___b. a conditioning phenomenon

___c. increase in the apperceptive mass

___d. reprogramming.

___e. a change in neural circuitry

___f. generating and selecting hypotheses

___g.______________________

10. How are skills and factual knowledge acquired?

___a. entirely through the senses

___b. by reflection

___c. by recall.

___d. by interaction in a problematic situation.

___e. by practice

___f. by reinforcement of appropriate responses.

___g. ______________________

11. What conditions promote learning?

___a. student interest

___b. student fear

___c. a warm class atmosphere.

___d. a strict teacher.

___e. different things depending on the individual.

___f.______________________

12. What conditions inhibit learning?

___a. student interest

___b. student fear

___c. a relaxed classroom.

___d. a strict classroom.

___e. different things depending on the individual.

___f._______________________


Transmitting Knowledge

13. How is knowledge passed on?

___a. by instruction

___b. it isn't; it's brought out of memory

___c. by imitation

___d. by mental telepathy

___e. by heredity

___f. it is acquired by persons in need

___g_______________________

14. Who is to teach?

___a. trained, certified professionals

___b. whosoever knows how

___c. those who can't do

___d. no one teaches; willing people learn.

___e._____________________

15. What methods should be used?

___a. whatever works

___b. experimentation in a realistic situation

___c. lecture

___d. memorization

___e.no methods are effective

___f. independent study

___g. controlled practice

___h.______________________


The Nature of Society
16. What is society?

___a. a crowd united for mutual benefit

___b. an organic unity

___c. oppressors oppressing the oppressed.

___d. a homeostatic mechanism

___e.people cooperating

___f. people who share values

___g.______________________

17. How does the individual relate to the group?

___a. the group is a collection of individuals

___b. individual identity derives from the group

___c. the individual has inalienable rights

___d. maximizing individual welfare also maximizes social welfare.

___e .groups are abstractions; only individuals exist.

___f. the person is a social idea

___g______________________

18. What institutions are involved in education?

___a. all of them

___b. none of them

___c. school, church and home

___d. not the school

___e.education can happen anywhere

___f. education may not happen anywhere

___g.______________________


Opportunity

19. Who is to be admitted to various types of education?

___a. everyone to the fullest extent of his or her potential

___b. only those intelligent enough to benefit

___c. anyone who can pay

___d. those whose success promotes the general welfare.

___e._____________________


Consensus

20. Why do people disagree?

___a. some lack knowledge

___b. it is natural for different people to disagree

___c. they value different things

___d. some are perverse

___e.they have different histories of reinforcement

___f.__________________

21. How is consensus achieved?

___a. through coercion

___b. through rational understanding

___c. through persuasion.

___d. when people don't realize they may still disagree with one another

___e._____________________

22. Whose opinion or judgment takes precedence?

___a. the authority's

___b. the experienced person's

___c. the knower's

___d. the older person's

___e.the powerholder's

___f.______________________


Click the immediately following link to go to a synoptic form of this questionnaire:(Link to Synopsis Form)

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